Who should replace David Letterman?

Talk-show host David Letterman gestures as he announces his move from NBC to CBS at a news conference on Thursday, Jan. 15, 1993 at CBS headquarters in New York. On April 3, 2014, Letterman annouced to his audience that he plans to retire in 2015. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

As word filtered out Thursday that David Letterman plans to retire next year, the race to replace the longest-running late night talk show host in television history went into immediate overdrive.

On the Internet and in an increasingly speculation-driven media, anyway. The usual suspects were quickly invoked to lead whatever CBS decides should replace the “Late Show with David Letterman.”

There’s Dave’s buddy Craig Ferguson, host of the network’s “Late Late Show” that’s produced by Letterman’s company, Worldwide Pants. That would be the smoothest, if maybe not the most exciting, transition, and would mirror the corporate synergy approach that so far has worked nicely with Jimmy Fallon’s friendly takeover of “The Tonight Show” from Jay Leno earlier this year.

The victim of Leno’s hostile, second takeover of “The Tonight Show,” Conan O’Brien, would be an edgier choice, and his TBS contract runs out in late 2015 — “Woo” goes the Web.

If CBS wants to be even bolder, the E! Network’s Chelsea Handler looks available. They’ll probably have better luck getting her than Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert, who are probably smart enough to know that their brands of political comedy won’t survive the smoothing out a broadcast network would undoubtedly require.

And if we’re talking someone that goes down easy, well, Leno isn’t doing anything at the moment.

Of course, hiring the guy who beat him out for Johnny Carson’s job back in the ’90s would be a horrid way for CBS to kiss Letterman goodbye. More than that, it would be a dreadful betrayal of Dave’s audience, and what the man did to genuinely change the late night TV landscape.

Along with such never-got-old bits as the “Top 10 List” and “Stupid Pet/Human Tricks,” Letterman brought a provocative charge to the time period, which up until his arrival had been considered, quite naturally, a time for tranquilizing, softball entertainment.

Letterman broadened the boundaries of what could be said and shown in the wee hours, and — partly due to his sometimes prickly personality — what a host could get away with. While Leno and now Fallon followed the safer Carson/Jack Paar-established route of not shaking anybody up, O’Brien and especially Jimmy Kimmel were deeply influenced by Letterman’s punkier example.

We wouldn’t have Kimmel’s hilarious fake feud with Matt Damon (and real one with Kanye West) without Letterman’s conflicts with Cher, Oprah, Crispin Glover, his employers and others having proven that, yes, flashes of temper and mean-spiritedness can sometimes be well worth staying up late for.

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Letterman was the late show host for the baby boom generation, and he embodied the rebelliousness and wised-up sarcasm that defined that age group. Leno, though three years younger, is a throwback to a generation of entertainers who just wanted to be loved by audiences, rather than admired for the consistency of their cleverness.

Sure, 32 years of the nightly grind has sometimes blunted Dave’s sharp wit. He’s gotten old as his core audience has grown sleepier, earlier, but if there was ever an aging comedian who rewarded repeat viewing, it was and still is Dave. He’s never quite become completely stale or predictable, and he’s kept firing the hope that danger still lurks inside him.

So, to jump on the speculation train of who will replace Dave (as if CBS hasn’t been brainstorming this for years already and doesn’t have possibilities in place), dare we dream it’ll be some youngster with an even more subversive bent?

Is Patton Oswalt too funny looking? Hasn’t stopped Conan (nor, for that matter, Dave). Sarah Silverman may have dated a late night host, but CBS could never tame her. Lena Dunham might work, but is she too indie and too embedded on the Masses Don’t Get Her perception scale to be considered despite her evident gifts?

How about Aziz Ansari? Kevin Hart? And if you’re looking for someone who’s proven he can front a talk show, there’s Steve Harvey, who might still be able to pull back from the mainstream brink and access his squirrelier, earlier comic capabilities.

Whomever CBS goes with, let’s point out that Letterman’s retirement offers the network an opportunity to do all of us out here a real solid. We’ve got a great venue for variety shows in Burbank that no one’s been using since February, which would be perfect for “Late Show with To Be Announced,” and they could probably get from a rival network for a song.

Just think, CBS, of how many more Beatles reunions you could shoot in that old Ed Sullivan Theater in New York. It’d be a win-win situation.